I just arrived at the Mobile World Congress and spent the day meeting partners and clients. It’s truly a vibrant and inspiring place to be. Check out some photos I shot from the exhibition halls below.

New figures out this week at Mobile World Congress from the GSM Association forecast that mobile data revenues will exceed mobile voice revenues globally by 2018, rising to US$559 billion. The GSMA points to how a connected planet will vastly improve the lives of individuals, but mobile also promises to revolutionize the workplace.

Mobile is opening up new opportunities for enterprises as never before. New mobile data services and applications—many of which will be delivered in the cloud—will enable companies to greatly improve productivity and take innovative approaches to managing people and processes. Those enterprises that act now will have a headstart on their competitors.

A quick glance around the MWC halls reveals the wealth of solutions and applications that can help set enterprises apart from the competition. The rapid rise of smartphones and tablets demonstrates how mobility can enable companies to improve productivity and take innovative approaches to managing people and processes. As a result, enterprises increasingly are deploying secure mobile cloud applications that provide flexible, 24/7 connectivity to business critical information for employees and other stakeholders, wherever they are.

But the rapid growth in mobile services and apps also leads to challenges for IT and business managers in terms of deploying and managing the best solutions to meet the flexible working demands of their workforce. They will need to integrate new products easily and cost effectively with their existing systems, and ensure that services are delivered securely. What’s more, mobile apps need to be robust and scalable, and be of clear use to employees.

In short, companies need to take a structured, systematic approach to the deployment and management of mobile devices and services. As the GSMA figures suggest the next phase in mobile data deployment will be on an unprecedented scale. If enterprises do not make the right choices, they risk losing out on the opportunity to harness mobile in order to determine how effectively they work and compete.